Restating the Obvious

The Kestner rule

Sunday in the newsroom we had a discussion about how much attention to pay to Hurricane Gustav. I invoked the Kestner rule.

Jack Kestner was in the Navy during World War II, and after he got out he followed a fetching young woman to Bermuda. Jack would have liked to have gotten a job at the Hamilton newspaper, but he couldn't. He made a thin living taking pictures of tourists in the lobbies of Hamilton hotels.

One week a hurricane blew toward Bermuda. It was scheduled to hit the same morning that the Hamilton paper, a weekly, came out. The paper's editor wrote a story about the damage the storm had done: the usual stuff, trees blown down, flooding in low areas.

Then he went home to bed. During the night, the hurricane changed course and missed Bermuda. Jack  became editor of the Hamilton paper and married the fetching lady.

The Kestner rule, which applies to other things besides hurricanes, states: Wait until it happens, then report it.